{"id":266585,"date":"2010-02-02T10:45:34","date_gmt":"2010-02-02T15:45:34","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blogs.courant.com,2010:\/capitol_watch\/\/9.70914"},"modified":"2010-02-02T11:07:36","modified_gmt":"2010-02-02T16:07:36","slug":"rob-simmons-to-attend-a-meet-and-greet-with-the-connecticut-tea-party-patriots-and-other-grassroots-conservatives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/266585","title":{"rendered":"Rob Simmons to attend a meet-and-greet with the Connecticut Tea Party Patriots and other grassroots conservatives"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Simmons, a Republican running for U.S. Senate, will meet with 23&nbsp;conservative groups under the umbrella of the&nbsp;Connecticut Grassroots Alliance from 2 to 4 p.m. on Saturday at the Holiday Inn Express in Southington.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our goal is to engage with candidates, to measure our comfort level with their ideas and their character,&#8221; said Bob MacGuffie, co-founder of one of those groups, Right Principles, said in an email announcing the event. &#8220;We want time with them individually, asking our own questions, to determine if they have the strength to buck this corrupt political system.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The gathering is&nbsp;one in a&nbsp;series of &#8220;meet and greets&#8221; with candidates over the next few&nbsp;months.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto\">Each&nbsp;candidate will issue an opening statement, then face questioning from selected grassroots leaders.&nbsp;Former Southington state Sen. Joe Markley will select written questions from the audience to pose to&nbsp;Simmons.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto\">&#8220;Four candidates currently seek the Republican Senate nomination, and all have support in our ranks,&#8221; said Markley.&nbsp; &#8220;I know no better way to assess them, and perhaps begin to unite around one of them, then to hear them each out individually.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto\">Adds Tanya Bachand, state organizer for the Connecticut Tea Party Patriots, &#8220;We have prepared some challenging questions for Congressman Simmons,&#8221;&nbsp;she said in&nbsp;the email.&nbsp;&#8220;We believe he deserves a fair hearing, a real chance to explain where he stands, and we appreciate his willingness to stand on the firing line.&#8221;<br \/>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Simmons, a Republican running for U.S. Senate, will meet with 23&nbsp;conservative groups under the umbrella of the&nbsp;Connecticut Grassroots Alliance from 2 to 4 p.m. on Saturday at the Holiday Inn Express in Southington. &#8220;Our goal is to engage with candidates, to measure our comfort level with their ideas and their character,&#8221; said Bob MacGuffie, co-founder [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4000,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-266585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4000"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266585\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}